The atmosphere at the kick-off meeting of the project was warm. After all, it is not common for the boss to come forward to support. The consulting company has long said that the status of the human resources department will be improved after the project is completed, and the human resources minister is full of ambitions. This is what we often see when management consulting companies enter enterprises. At this time, it is hard for the minister to think that the consulting project may not bring the ease of the consultant's help, but the trouble brought by the interest game of all parties. After all, the human resources department is only an auxiliary department and does not belong to any business department. Here, it is not generally difficult to lead a project related to all business departments: the defects in the contract will be exposed, the boss's expectations are too high, and the consultant lacks enough experience to communicate with business departments, resulting in contradictions. The business department is unwilling to cooperate, and the most troublesome thing is that the project is rejected by the boss or the business department when it is submitted in installments. As a project introducer,
The embarrassment of the human resources department can be imagined.
The introduction of consulting companies is not strict, which is the root of the problems in subsequent projects.
The consulting market is a serious information asymmetry market, and it is difficult for human resources departments to judge whether consulting companies are suitable for their own companies. All human resources projects must be implemented. Finally, the effect of all human resources consulting projects is not reflected in the human resources department, but in the business department.
Therefore, the human resources department should pay attention to the following points when selecting consultants:
Whether the resident project manager has enough implementation experience, the level of the project manager is the level of the project itself. It's simple to evaluate each other: first, look at the insight and see if you have seen any problems we haven't mentioned; The second is to see if there are any measures to change the implementation and whether the analysis of the implementation resistance is in place.
Be careful when consulting companies mention paying per head, because consulting companies are hired to solve problems. We should try our best to describe the effect to be achieved after the end of the project, instead of focusing on a few consultants.
Don't care too much about whether the project proposal in the early communication is beautiful or not. Imagine a consultant who has never gone deep into the enterprise, and you are moved by a beautiful project proposal. Do they still have enough motivation to go deep into the enterprise after entering the market? How to deal with the cooperation of consulting projects?
A partial copy of the contract instead of taking effect will bring trouble to the local area.
As analyzed in article 4 above, most consulting companies regard providing copywriting as the final result of the project. When the project is to be settled, the consultant provides thick documents and the company pays thick banknotes. Project managers often teach consultants: there is no result, there is a process, there is no process, there is a document. The so-called obvious results of general consulting companies are thick documents. Logic is the key to convince customers, but the premise of logic is information symmetry. It is often seen that management consulting executives are scolding subordinate consultants for lack of logic in their copywriting. Think of Mr. Feng Youlan's words: Some people think that all knowledge that is logically thorough is science. The question is, is science really that important to management consulting? In fact, there is only one case in which the answer is yes, that is, the target person of management no longer has independent thinking, and everyone shows the same reaction to the same stimulus. In management consulting projects, it is almost impossible to find a logical solution without setting subjective goals. The absurdity of subjective goal setting lies in the complexity of human subjective factors and the multi-objective characteristics of human in management. Most management consultants dare not take the subjective concept of determining personal behavior as the starting point. They systematically take the concept of dominating personal behavior as the starting point, rather than their theoretical conclusions about their own behavior. That is, their own behavior is probably the starting point and conclusion of the program. Therefore, a famous management consulting company put forward the expected hypothesis method in a book describing its management consulting mystery, and regarded it as a magic weapon. As long as there is an assumption, there is no need to worry about illogicality, because all data collection has been carried out in the direction of this assumption since then. Although the apparent reason is to avoid unnecessary data interference energy. As for the strategy based on industry analysis, it is hard to say whether there is strategic orientation before collecting relevant industry information.
As for another magic weapon: systematicness. Golde, the most outstanding mathematician in modern Europe, also proved mathematically in the 20th century that any complete system must be contradictory. Any seemingly complete theory can only be a fragment of practice, which determines that it is wrong once it is produced. The value of theory lies not in itself, but in the creative application and solution of practical problems in practice. This is especially true for management consulting. Teaching clients how to solve problems with theory is the greatest value of consulting, and at the same time, it also puts forward higher requirements for consultants: only with sufficient enterprise experience and insight into human nature can they be qualified to be mentors of equally experienced client employees, not only teaching methods, but also conveying life values. These are things that most consulting companies are unwilling to do, because the salary of senior consultants with a lot of business management experience is becoming more and more difficult to manage. As human resource managers, we should be alert to avoid consulting companies introducing consulting orientation into the trap of only logical and systematic analysis.
Therefore, to test the project results, it is not enough to just look at whether the documents are logical, but also to see whether the consultants can really bring changes to the customers, even if such changes are difficult to measure, such as changes in employees' behavior habits and psychological structure. Management consulting sells services, products are embodied by people, and the effect of products is also embodied by people. Although management consulting companies do their best to standardize and measure products, customers get quantitative solutions when they pay. But the value that customers get is not determined by the number of schemes. Instead, ask something inside: is the view on the problem correct? Is the solution to the problem correct? Is it easy to achieve? Has the idea of starting a business kept up with the changing content? Wait a minute.
On the other hand, the value of consultation changes with the relationship between the consultant and the client: the recognition of the scheme, the recognition of the methodology and the epistemological exchange on the basis of full trust. The value of high-level consultation is just as Lao Tzu said: less is more. In other words, as the saying goes, thousands of fake volumes are actually passed on.
It is essential to discuss with the boss.
When we find that the problems of enterprises are all people's problems, when we know that people's problems are mainly boss's problems, and the boss himself is the most difficult to change. So the most effective entrepreneur consultation for the enterprise died.
This kind of consultation can only show muscles: scientific copying. Showing off muscles is very effective for bosses in China, because most of them were born in an age of lack of nutrition and didn't learn enough science. Moreover, China has a very superstitious educational tradition. So under the brand of science, I recited a book that was more beautiful and thicker than the textbook. Plus the mysterious server and the dazzling reports spit out from the computer. It is enough to make the boss with only secondary education submit and give the money he earned by mistake.
The consultant muscle man came to the enterprise, said hello to the bosses (brain-dead) and began to practice stalls with the department managers. The boss is ashamed of not knowing science and doesn't want to talk to muscular men. Muscle man is just comfortable. Muscle man skillfully and shamelessly uses systematic thinking to remove the brain and build a mechanical monster without brain. The barbell lifted by the mechanical monster is much lighter than its own. Muscle man takes the money and leaves. The result of the project is either theorization, which makes the boss's original idea scientific, or it is completely destroyed by the boss afterwards. The reason is that everyone understands it, but the boss has not fully understood it, because he rarely sees consultants in the project.
After reading this article, when you see a group of consultants in suits and ties and laptops coming to your office again to discuss management consulting projects, you don't have to be confused by their dazzling charts, but you can also turn a deaf ear to their jargon.
Only pay attention to whether they really see the problems of the enterprise and whether the solutions are feasible. You can directly ask them to say in vernacular, what are the effects of their views and practices, and whether these effects can enter the contract. At the same time, we must pay attention to the level of the project manager. A high-quality project manager will directly help you solve cross-departmental communication problems. He will not avoid all the problems you encounter in promotion and put forward feasible implementation plans. I believe that after doing this, you will reduce a lot of trouble in future project cooperation.